Motifs and themes

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Posted by nakahara
January 3, 2017 12:24 am
#1

What motifs and themes did you notice to feature in an episode?

I think the most obvious one was a theme of the impossibility of escape from death, but paired and ballanced with the theme of the unpredictability of fate.

The story of meeting in Samarra was a nice frame to the entire narrative and it led us to believe that Mary will meet her fate while trying to escape from it. It made it look like Mary would be caught and maybe killed in Morrocco by AJ and when he actually confronted her there, it seemed it´s her end. 

But suddenly she was saved from her fate by AJ´s death. Also, Sherlock persuaded Mary to return from "Samarra" back to "Baghdad" (London) and he thus reversed the Samarra story in a way. He, who was so rebellious against this tale that he invented stories about the Baghdad merchant´s successful escape from death, seemed to suceed in real life too and to save Mary from the consequences of her past.

And yet it was this decision that proved fatal to Mary, because the bullet that took her life waited at her in London.

The fate proved to be set into stone after all - inescapable but twisted and led by an irony of a pure chance....

The story of a boy who died in a car seemed to work with a similar theme. To travel far away, only to bizarrely die close to home....

Last edited by nakahara (January 3, 2017 2:41 pm)


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 
Posted by miriel68
January 3, 2017 8:19 am
#2

Yes, I liked the motive of "appointment in Samarra" quite a lot, it has a poetic beauty that somehow was lacking from the spy-terrorist subplot in the episode. It seemed to apply to Sherlock, then to Mary, then to Vivian Norbury and finally back to Mary. But I suspect in the last instance it could apply to Mycroft.

 
Posted by SusiGo
January 3, 2017 8:21 am
#3

The water imagery in all its forms: pool, rain, aquarium, Thames, beach, Sherlock seeing water again and again in his mind. 
 


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"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 
Posted by Pops
January 3, 2017 8:50 am
#4

SusiGo wrote:

The water imagery in all its forms: pool, rain, aquarium, Thames, beach, Sherlock seeing water again and again in his mind. 
 

Exactly that !! And all the promo shoots having a "dark watery" theme.
 


 
Posted by Vhanja
January 3, 2017 10:14 am
#5

I also felt it had a lot to do with emotions in genereal. Frustration, guilt, temptation, anger, stress, jealousy, lovers (and friends) drifting apart - and for once it actually comes up and will be dealt with instead of just simmering under the surface (as it was in S3).


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Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 10:17 am
#6

It looks like a theme for the series is going to be loss and reconciliation.
Unfortunately this first episode concentrated on the loss part.


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Posted by Liberty
January 3, 2017 10:19 am
#7

I have a feeling we're coming back to the water stuff later.   It wasn't just for this episode.  

I've always loved the Samarra story.  I don't believe in fate, but there's something incredibly satisfying and almost reassuring about the story.  So I liked its use here. 

I didn't feel it applied to the boy in the car so well.  Perhaps just in the sense that his parents would be worried about him out in Tibet, whereas what was going to happen to him could have happened anywhere, at any time.   But maybe if he'd just knocked on the door and said "surprise!", he could have been saved.  In a way, the fact that he was supposed to be abroad was irrelevant beyond the fact that he was sent a message that seemed to have come from beyond the grave.   Which was another theme - as that's what Moriarty and Mary did. 

There were also themes of trust and betrayal.

 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 10:20 am
#8

Please, not more water!
But yes, we know we are getting the boat scene at least...


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Posted by SusiGo
January 3, 2017 11:42 am
#9

And John in the well. 


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"To fake the death of one sibling may be regarded as a misfortune; to fake the death of both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde about Mycroft Holmes

"It is what it is says love." (Erich Fried)

“Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.” (Benedict Cumberbatch)



 
 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 11:43 am
#10

You just had to remind me of that, didn't you?!


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Posted by Mothonthemantel
January 3, 2017 12:31 pm
#11

At the end of T6T , Ella says " you're having a recurring dream.."

Saving John Watson. In Pink we all know John saved Sherlock by shooting the cabbie, however in every episode since then , Sherlock has in some way , saved John Watson. . Most often Johns life in a fairly dramatic way that seems to be becoming increasingly dramatic.

Mycroft told us Sherlock disliked the Death in the market story and especially the end .So Sherlock wrote a fix it - his own version - that avoided death and where in the end Sherlock becomes a pirate.   
In the finale will we get Water again , saving John  again only this time maybe with a boat?

But I do wonder if this repeating theme is maybe Sherlock running some kind of fix it mind palace sequence or dream . Maybe until he gets the ending he likes ? 

Last edited by Mothonthemantel (January 3, 2017 12:33 pm)


"Man may not be degraded  to being a machine by being denied to be a ghost in the machine."
It's just transport. The virus in the hard drive . However impossible .Must be the truth.
 
Posted by Liberty
January 3, 2017 1:25 pm
#12

Just wondering, Nakahara, if you meant "motives" or "motifs"?  I wanted to make sure I was talking about the right thing!  (I constantly make typos, as you can see by the fact that just about every post I make is edited, so I wondered because motifs seems more closely related to themes).  They are both interesting to talk about, so I don't mind which it is! 

Last edited by Liberty (January 3, 2017 1:26 pm)

 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 1:43 pm
#13

Possibly we could add motifs to this discussion!


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Posted by nakahara
January 3, 2017 2:41 pm
#14

Liberty wrote:

Just wondering, Nakahara, if you meant "motives" or "motifs"?  I wanted to make sure I was talking about the right thing!  (I constantly make typos, as you can see by the fact that just about every post I make is edited, so I wondered because motifs seems more closely related to themes).  They are both interesting to talk about, so I don't mind which it is! 

Motifs, definitely motifs. I didn´t even noticed I wrote "motives" there. 


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 
Posted by nakahara
January 3, 2017 2:47 pm
#15

Pops wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

The water imagery in all its forms: pool, rain, aquarium, Thames, beach, Sherlock seeing water again and again in his mind. 
 

Exactly that !! And all the promo shoots having a "dark watery" theme.
 

I think the water imagery was there to strenghten the central motif or "sharks".

As we know from speech of Mrs. Norbury, she compares sharks with agents - just like the sharks have to swim constantly lest they die, the agents must constantly be in the move, always looking above their shoulder and if they think they can just settle peacefully somewhere after such life, some awful chance will soon shatter this illusion. Just like the shark - Mary - was destroyed by the consequences of her actions despite falsely believing that she now found her safe harbour in life.

The dark blue water mirrored on faces and surfaces in this ep seems to reflect this world of sharks in which the character find themselves during the episode....
 


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I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window there. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?

 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 4:15 pm
#16

I certainly do think all of the water represents characters going against the flow, wading through deep water, going under and in some cases drowning...


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Posted by Lis
January 3, 2017 4:42 pm
#17

Not really a theme but it was interesting that Sherlock created two elaborate, and false, scenarios to explain the very simple. Once when he was talking to the client along with John balloon about how the guy's wife was a dangerous spy (wonder where he got the inspiration for that one?) when she had in fact just left him and then again with Mary when explaining how he had tracked her down with mathematics and psychology when he had just used a tracer.

Could just be Sherlock having fun or maybe a hint from Mofftiss that some of our fan theories are so crazy when the actual explanations are very simple.

Last edited by Lis (January 3, 2017 7:30 pm)


                                                                                                                      

All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage.

 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 4:47 pm
#18

I certainly agree with your last comment...some people seem to have far too much time on their hands!


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Posted by KeepersPrice
January 3, 2017 7:59 pm
#19

SusiGo wrote:

And John in the well. 

 
When I saw that scene in the trailer all I could think of was the old nursery rhyme, "Ding, Dong, Dell, Pussy's in the Well".  And now all I can think about is that John has to go down into the well to try to save something/someone - Rosie? Difficult to even contemplate that.

Someone is still trying to burn the heart out of Sherlock.  John and everyone else Sherlock loves are still very much in danger and need to be "saved". If Moriarty set all this in motion before he died, this is a diabolical long game indeed.


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And I said "dangerous" and here you are.

You. It's always you. John Watson, you keep me right.

 
Posted by besleybean
January 3, 2017 8:01 pm
#20

Sheesh, I thought Rosie was safe...but maybe not.


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